Cusco

Cusco is whitout any doubt the most beautiful city we have seen in Perú. Cusco, el ombligo del mundo, the bellybutton of the world, lies in the sacred valley of the Incas. From the terrace of our hostal, we had a beautiful view on the gorgeous Plaza de Armas so it was quite nice having desayuno (breakfast) there under the ever present sun.

Cusco has many picturesque little streets, sometimes very steep and the remains of the Incas are ever present. It is very nice to walk around for hours, especially in the San Blas bario. A tip for people travelling to Cusco, go and have lunch in el Buen Pastor in the San Blas bario. It is a bakery run by a nun and twelve orphins. It has very nice empanadas, pizzas and of course an overload of pastry. You can eat on the first floor. Do not forget to order a borracho, a tasty chocolate ball with a slight brandy flavour, delicious but quite heavy! The only annoying thing in Cusco is that people never leave you alone. All the time you are boarded by people who want to get you in their restaurant or who want to sell you postcards, souvenirs, tours, weed, cocaine or whatever crap you can imagine. Another little inconvenience could be that there is far less Chifas in Cusco than in Arequipa.

On Tuesday, we went to visit the ruins of Pesac. They are very impresive, but there is a lot of tourists and Peruvian school groups. All of a sudden we became very popular with school girls and we had to pose to be in pictures with girls tons of times, it was good fun. The walk back down from the ruins to Pisac was cool. We met a Frenchman on the way and joined him to a restaurant on the Plaza de Armas. It was way too expensive so we just had a plate of soup and had some empanadas baked in a huge oven from an old woman after. Actually, Pisac is one big market with hundreds of stalls just selling souvenirs, so not really worth going, though the ruins high in the mountains are definetely worth paying a visit. In about an hour, the bus took us from Pisac to the ruins of Qenco for two soles (0.5 euro). They were not very spectacular, especially after having seen the Pisac ruins, but it was a part of the boleto integral we had to buy to get into the Pisac ruins, so it was okay. From Qenco, we walked back to our hostal and we had gorgeous views on Cusco.

On Wednesday, Thomas and I stayed in Cusco, visited the Plaza de Armas and some museums. The museums were boring, but again, they were on the boleto integral. After a nice dinner with Mickey and Kathleen, two nice people from near Ghent, we went to Mama Africa, the place to be for tourists who want to go out. Around midnight it got just crowded enough and Thomas and I met two very nice and beautiful girls from Lima, sisters, Cindyta and Claudita, it was a good night dancing!

Next morning, after only a few hours of sleep, we woke up in panic at 8.45 am, because we had to be on the Plaza de Armas at 9.00 am to go rafting. Running the steep streets down to the centre we just made it in time. A mini-bus took us to the Urubamba river where we did a two-hour raft of category two to three. It was quite easy, but good fun. At night, we went to a Peruvian-Mexican restaurant where we took the 10 soles-menu (2.5 euros) that consisted of tacos, garlic bread with Pisco sour, a soup or a salad, a main plate and coffee, very good price-quality. We went to bed quite early because next day we had to get up early to start the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.